


Castles on the ground

by pinkasrenzo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bedtime Stories, Domestic Fluff, For once no angst, I just watched Big Fish and I had to, Introspection, M/M, POV Draco Malfoy, Parenting stuff, Past Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy, Post Hogwarts AU, Recovering Memories, Thedore Nott A+ parenting, hinted Auror!Draco, hinted partners!Harry/Draco, like really all of this is just thanks to Tim, lots of fluff, really there's NOTHING angst, thank you Tim for making me write happy things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 15:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14115780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkasrenzo/pseuds/pinkasrenzo
Summary: It's like wind seeping through memories, sewing back a past of fragments and lighting up a future everytime closer and steadier. A walking backwards and forwards, dusting off forgotten paths and lost memories in a slow and steady whispering through wood and cotton.





	Castles on the ground

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rainingashonFlorence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainingashonFlorence/gifts).
  * A translation of [Castles on the ground](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14092011) by [pinkasrenzo_ita (pinkasrenzo)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkasrenzo/pseuds/pinkasrenzo_ita). 



> So uh, not a native speaker and all that.  
> The important thing is: it's a happy fic. Like _actual_ happy. No angst, no drama, just domestic fluff and Theo and Draco being domestic af and good parents and I don't know how I did it cause I don't write happy stuff. Never. But that's it. I did it. Can't believe it yet but hey, I deserve a cake.  
>  Enjoy the happiness and fluffiness and leave me a kudos if you want :) 
> 
> \- G.

**I.**

 

The first time was embarrassed and subdued, like the first time he opened his Christmas presents and found a thin silver chainlet and a small light silver band shining through the knots. It was a muffled laugh because _that wasn’t how it actually went_ , and a sliding down the wall for something that wasn’t tiredness but made his knees weak just the same.

It was whispered, in the silence of an almost empty manor and furniture covered in white sheets, a warm and soft voice that slid slowly through the cold walls and the windows sealed to keep the night at bay.

It was unexpected and uncertain because it was another side and another shade of someone he thought he knew by heart, and instead amazed him once more and warmed his hands up even if it was three at night in the middle of March and he should’ve scolded him because the curfew was at eight in the evening.

The first time it happened, he opened the door slowly, expecting to find a quiet home and the slow sound of sleeping breaths filling the air. He took off his shoes, walking slowly not to make the wooden floor creak under his steps, looking for the white light of the television still on with the volume turned off and the blanket fallen off the couch because Theodore moved in his sleep and didn’t notice the cold on his legs.

He turned off the tv and folded the blanket, the empty couch with the cramped print of Theo’s body still lingering on the fabric. He left the shoes on the carpet and let the tie fall quietly on the chair by the table. He heard a voice, a murmur, words and memories he didn’t recognise and didn’t know to be his, slipping through the corridors slowly, cautiously, brushing his skin and tickling his nape with slender fingers.

«––rchers that chased them.»

He leaned against the wall, cocking an ear to the voice that whispered behind the closed door, savouring his son’s laughter and the moving of the sheets when the pillow bent under his head. He could imagine him as if he were in front of him, shaking his head with his eyes squeezed just as Astoria did, saying behind his hands clutched into fists, gripping the blanket in his fingers: «they caught them!»

Another laugh, warmer and slower, answered him and said: «No, they made it out», a pause and a rustling of fabric, «and do you know how?»

He let his fingers brush the doorknob, feeling the cold metal underneath his fingertips, and a creaking sound stopped him when Scorpius asked lightly: «how?»

«Can’t you imagine it at all?»

«It’s not fair if I imagine it, you gotta tell it!»

«Alright, alright…»

There was something melancholic and nostalgic, carrying the taste of unsaid and absence, hidden in the laughter, and Draco felt his heart tighten and tugging and his fingers itching against the wood, and he wondered what that was that scratching of sounds and footsteps pushing behind the veil of memories.

«So? How did they do it?» asked Scorpius’ impatient voice.

«Uh so, they were chasing them and–– and they wanted to steal their souls, turn them into blue-skinned monsters just like them, they tried to flush them out, but the prince and the princess found a river––»

«They dove in!»

«They dove in and used hollow branches to breathe.»

«Not the _bubble-head_?»

He heard it in his voice, that stubborn frown that made him pout and furrow his brows, making him look less serious than he wanted to appear.

«No, they weren’t wizards», a barely hinted laughter that slid through the letters, «anyway, they dove in, and the archer went right above their heads and––», Theo’s voice trailed off, as if telling a secret, «and they didn’t see them. They just passed by without even thinking they might’ve been there, right before their eyes.»

And there was something familiar that slipped through the letters and the whispers. Something that tugged at the corners of the past, and the wall kept him up when his knees started to tremble and he slid on the floor, hugging his legs to his chest, feeling something swelling and throbbing steadily, slow and warm, against his ribs. The voices reached him softened, sliding through the cotton folds and his arms around his head.

«And they were safe then?»

«Exactly.»

«But how did they get out?», and there was the hint of laughter behind the _t_ of out.

«It was hard, but they made it back to the castle.»

«Without their clothes!»

And laughter broke the air, the memory of blue hair and angry shouts that echoed through the Slytherin’s Common Room flowed his mind. Blaise restraining Pansy kicking and screaming, and Draco laughing loudly, feeling his chest vibrating, and Theo running and dragging him along, seeking shelter in the woods.

«And no one saw them?»

«Eh, almost.»

«I bet! A lost princess, naked at that!»

«It wasn’t their fault; all their clothes were stolen, and–– well, they had to go back though. They couldn’t just stay there forever. In the river the grindilows showed a certain–– interest, so to speak», a faint laugh, «in the princess.»

He lifted his head up, the memories appearing slowly and faintly like bubbles from under the water’s surface, filling the air with the smell of moss and wet grass, of skin wrinkled by the cold and damp hair on the neck. Giving him back the sound of laughter and skin against skin, of breathtaking runs and stolen kisses. Retracing paths covered in dried leaves turned red and yellow and orange that tickled his skin when Theo undressed him with no haste, laughing on his shoulder.

«The prince tried to keep it away, somehow and–– let's say branches weren’t much friendly and the grindilow was pretty much determined.»

«It hit him?»

He stifled a laugh, feeling his eyes sting and the slight fear in Scorpius’ voice.

«It caught him on the back, from his neck down, almost splitting him in two!» And he could imagine Theo twisting his lips in that amused smile that tried to hide, but trembled behind his laugh.

«But the prince didn’t give up, and the princess could fight too, don’t forget that.»

«She defeated it! It was her!»

«Yeah, it was her. She took the prince’s sword and pierced the grindilow, making a hole right through him.»

At those words he inhaled slowly, feeling under his fingers the faint and thin traces covering Theo’s back, remembering not a sword but a bright red light bursting through the air. He hid his face in his arms and brought his memories back to a running freely in the woods, in the middle of autumn, without nothing but their underwear to shield them from the cold, and the dead branches that creaked under their bare feet, scratching just enough not to break the laughters hidden behind their fingers. He saw the green darting again before his eyes, and then the water filling his ears and his lungs, acid and cold, stinging his skin and burning his eyes. He saw Theo’s smiling face distorted by the river's water and his wet hair scattering waterdrops on the leaves turning to brown, while he shook his head and laughed because he had red streams on his back and was unsteady in his steps. Draco blew on his lips and called him _idiot_ with a rage he didn’t have, shouting whispering because Pansy was just a few feet away and had his jeans and coat.

And then a light touch on his shoulder brought him back and forward, to a Theodore a few years older, smiling at him, crouching on the wood at his feet, brushing his fringe away from his eyes and wiping off his tears with the back of his hand.

 

«It wasn’t quite how I remembered it…» he told him then when his lips brushed his naked shoulders and his arms anchored him to the present.

«You shouldn’t have heard that…» Theo answered, hiding his face in the hollow of his neck, the heat of his embarrassment warming up his skin and the hint of a smile breaking his lips.

«He had a nightmare, asked me for a fairytale», he apologised even if he didn’t need to.

«Am I the princess then?» he laughed, pretending to be offended.

«More like the Snow Queen», Theo whispered in his ear, a warm chill running down his back, and Draco smiled faintly to his fifteen-year-old self, with arms still white and the autumn’s scrapes on his skin. He abandoned himself to the warmth of Theodore’s body against his back, to the slow and steady beating of his heart against his bones, to his hair, now too long, tickling his temple when he kissed the corner of his mouth and his eyelids, closed behind memories of an untroubled time he didn’t know he still had.

 

 

**II.**

 

The second time was after one of those days that made him want to forget it as soon as his head hit the pillow. After one of those days that made him wish for his throat to burn and his mind to numb. He opened the door of their apartment in London as if it was carved out of stone, feeling the laces of his boots tighten around his legs in a fierce grip, and hearing Harry’s voice still screaming in his ears, telling him to let go and that there was nothing left to do but look for shelter. He let the cloak, stained with the black and red of blood and ashes, fall not caring if it landed on the hanger,  and cast aside his weariness kicking off his clothes soaked in the acrid smell of smoke.

He slid into an old sweater that was once Theo’s and that he kept from their Hogwarts years and forgot to give it back until it ended up permanently in his closet.

Draco turned off the television and was startled when he noticed it turned on instead. He stared absently at the pictures moving sloppily on the screen and Sofia Loren’s seductive smile filling the wavering frame, flinching when a sneeze broke the silence and he found himself following once again a slow and steady whisper till the closed door of Scorpius’ room. He leaned against the wall, sliding down on the floor, the stone supporting him, and Theo’s voice casting away the screams of a broken family and the scent of fire and smoke that still stung his skin. He let Scorpius’ curious questions cancel Harry’s flat ones, while they were compiling the report after the mission and the number of the dead was more than they could bear and neither one of them had the strength nor the will to notice.

«––in the library», Theo laughed, telling Scorpius of how a pile of books fell on the princess of Altheris, when werewolves were hunting in the realm and it was of the utmost importance to find a cure to save her beloved. And Draco remembered seeing a pair of eyes, as black as the night sky, widen in surprise and fear, at the sight of a shelf collapsing on his head, when in his third year he was obsessed with fangs and claws covered in fur. He remembered the first words they spoke in three years, even though they shared a dorm, being quick and tense, hidden by heavy books and centuries-old parchments. Red colouring his cheeks and heating the skin of his neck, his voice caught in his throat and Theodore’s lips trembling not to let a smile crack his lips, looking away from his messy hair.

«She didn’t get hurt?»

«No, she was surprisingly strong, remember?»

Theo’s voice reached him faintly, a hidden whisper and an amused nodding from Scorpius.

«She kept searching through the pages,» Theo kept going, «but couldn’t find anything, and her hope was fading away––»

«She can’t lose hope!», an angry interruption that made Draco smile and muted the screams a bit more.

«Of course not», he said laughing, something soft and hidden, intimate and secret, slipping through the letters and turning Harry’s tired eyes into Theodore’s calm ones.

«Right, cause she has to save the prince.»

«She will, but not thanks to the books.»

«How then?»

«With a kiss.»

Draco held his breath for an instant, feeling and remembering all those years of stolen glances and silent conversations stuck in the fear of crossing that thin line that would have given a name to that us that was taking shape, slowly and in no hurry, filling the corners and fractures, sewing back footsteps and uncovering memories. He inhaled slowly, feeling Theo’s voice faintly whisper: «––when he was still a wolf…» and he could see Scorpius frowning in confusion and staring at Theodore in a way that remembered him so much of Astoria, from the tip of his hair to the fold of his lips, because he looked too much like her, and Draco had to look away when he found his son lost in thought.

«He didn’t attack her?»

«No…»

«Why?»

«Because he knew it was _her_ and he always loved her and could have recognised her in any shape and under any spell. He loved her _so much_ , since the first time he saw her, even if he never dared to tell her…»

There were uncertainty and a hint of confusion in his voice, and Draco felt his fingers itch and the need to take Theo’s hands in his because _you didn’t need to tell me_ and he’d never had to. They both knew, and it was enough. There was no need for words when a simple touch, a light brushing of fingertips, a look suspended in the air, already said what they needed.

 

He heard a rustling of sheets and Theo’s steps bending the wood, while he tucked Scorpius into bed. He got up quickly from the floor and hid in their room, huddling in a sweater that felt like memories and nights snuggled together on the couch of the Slytherin’s Common Room, Pansy and Blaise chuckling and the flames in the fireplaces making the shadows dance slow. He breathed in his thirteen years in the wool, waiting for Theodore to open the door and pulling him into a hug that said what remained stuck in his throat. Draco kissed him slowly, feeling his hands running down his back and legs, the floor missing from underneath his feet and his body lighter in Theo’s arm. He breathed him in deeply, letting the scent of coffee and hot cocoa fill his lungs and suffocate the smell of ashes and flames. He let his fingers run lightly, drawing memories of an embarrassed thirteen-years-old buried under a pile of books and stuttering because he’d just seen the darkest eyes in the world and fell into them and kept falling deeper, even now and even if he was almost thirty-three. He let his body and hands speak for him, sealing words in the melting of breaths and the brushing of skin and lips, in the faint clashing of teeth and bones and the slowly tangling of lives and hidden whispers.

He clung to that _familiar_ and that inkling of _his_ and _ours_ that lingered in the sheets and wool, slipping cautiously through cold fingers on his skin and the blankets fallen off the bed. He tangled himself into that mix of past and present that tasted like coffee and smiles stained with cream and chocolate, in that mix of nostalgia and impatience that surrounded their Hogwarts years and the years that still separated them from the hard ground and the cold marble. He let himself be wrapped in the silence and the warmth of Theo’s skin against his own, feeling himself drifting off to sleep slowly and calmly, embracing them both in a soft and muffled silence.

 

 

**III.**

 

The third time was calm and tasted like routine.

Opening the door he found the lights on, the television turned off and the blanket carefully folded on the chair next to the dining room’s table. He calmly took off his shoes, changing his shirt with an old _Back to the Future_ t-shirt that once belonged to someone whose name he didn’t remember anymore. He sat with his back against the wall separating him from Scorpius’ room and listened to his son’s voice asking faintly: «and did he survive?»

«Yes, he even married the princess.»

«Really?»

«Uh-uh, he did.»

«But how was the duel? Tell me about the duel!»

«The prince had to fight for his honour; it wasn’t anymore only about the princess.»

«But the chosen one was challenging him! He couldn’t win!» he felt the curiosity and excitement in Scorpius’ voice, and smiled, the memories of when he was fourteen and thought to be in love with Harry Potter slowly coming to the surface. He heard Theo calling him stupid when he told him, and his laugh when he was nineteen, after the war and the peace. He laughed once again when Theo’s hurt voice said: «so little faith! The prince wasn’t so bad himself, you know», because there hadn’t even been the shadow of a sword, nor of a duel. He stifled a laugh against the back of his hand and stretched out his legs on the wooden floor, closing his eyes and letting Theo’s voice taking him back to a past that was his but not quite, made of knights, armours and duels he’d never seen.

He laughed silently, brushing the thin white line cracking his lip slightly at the left of his nose, and heard Theo laughing lightly, while he lost himself in the shining of armours.

«They began to fight, and the prince had almost cornered the chosen one but then what happens?»

«What?»

«He kicks off his sword, and it goes flying up high and falls right towards the princess!»

He heard a rustling of sheets and could imagine Scorpius springing up just like he did when he told him about the Little Mermaid turning into foam and he didn’t want to believe. He laughed, remembering how there weren’t swords but fists and a rock, big as a child’s fist, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

«But the prince didn’t lose time!»

Theo’s voice reached him sounding amused, growing louder in the quiet of the house.

«He stopped the sword with his bare hands on its blade, just a tiny bit away from her.»

«He did?!»

«He did. And he got right back into fighting, even if he couldn’t use his hands so well, and with two swords…», he could feel the satisfaction sliding through the words and laughed, thinking about how reality had been so foolish and unbelievable instead.

He remembered Harry and Theodore rolling on the ground, staining their knuckles and faces in red and their uniforms with dust and dirt. He recalled how he tried to separate them and ended up on the ground instead, just a breath away from a rock that could have taken out his eye if he’d been just a little bit closer. It hadn’t been a valiant duel, nor an epic rescue. It'd been three fourteen-years-old tugging at each other’s hair and spitting blood because they were angry and their fists hit hard and left black and purple on their skin. It'd been McGonagall separating them and giving them each a month of detention and 30 points deducted. It'd been Theodore complaining about the disinfectant in the infirmary because his nose was broken, his teeth were red and he liked how his voice echoed between the white tiles. It had been Draco slapping his neck when he tried to motivate his actions, saying right after he was sorry because Theo's lips twisted and his laugh broke in half. It had been foolish and _ordinary_.

«He won though.»

Scorpius’ voice brought him back to the present and Theodore smiling, chuckling and whispering: «and he won the princess’ hand in marriage», slowly closing the door, hiding his slightly mischievous laughter in quiet footsteps on the wood.

He laughed, sneaking up on Theo and kissing him against the wall, dragging him into the living room and falling under the weight of his body, landing on the couch and then on the floor. He whispered in his ear _idiot_ and _liar_ when his fingers were warm against his ribs and his laughs made his chest shake. They laughed, leaving their clothes on the chairs and they walked falling and stumbling towards the bed. They stopped to catch their breath when their jaws hurt and the teasing broke the silence and the secret of the night. They listened to the silence wrapping them in its embrace and the blood flowing slow and steady in their veins, pulsing quietly and slowing down their breaths. They listened to their heartbeats filling the air and chasing one another to then rest together. They forgot about the clothes and laughed once more, faintly, letting the shaking of their bodies fill the silence of foolish happiness and the space between them of warmth even during winter.

 

 

**IV.**

 

The fourth time was of stifled laughs and flushed cheeks that warmed his legs. It was banging his head against the wall trying not to laugh in the silence breaking the magic of the words. It was more after and less listening, not so much of a fairytale and quite real.

It was after a peaceful day, slow and lazy, of those that faintly announce the beginning of summer and the vivid colours of flowers breaking through grey sidewalks. He didn’t turn off the television when he opened the living room’s door and smelt the scent of ice and shook his head. He slowly took off his boots, stripping off the laces one loop at a time, freeing himself from the constriction of cotton and slipping tiredly in a shirt that hung on his shoulders. He walked lazily, feeling the warm and cold wood creaking faintly underneath his footsteps and tired fingers. He leaned against the wall, sliding down till his back thanked him with a barely audible _crack_ and his legs, stretched out, touched the wall in front of him with just the tip of his fingers. He let himself being transported into a world made of princes and princesses, of fairies and orcs and spells without a name, lulled by Theo’s voice seeping through the crack between the wooden door and the floor. 

«And she could fly, but wasn’t so good at it, she was still a beginner», he laughed faintly, showing him memories from back when he was twenty-something-odds days and they found themselves in the midst of coloured smoke and cold water that snatched loud laughs and surprised screams; bringing him back to blurred colours, moving fast through sounds and arms that danced and covered the clouds.

«The explorers had to take her with them, they couldn’t leave her alone, she could’ve fallen from who knows where.»

«So a clumsy fairy, two explores and…?»

«And a piper.» 

«Like the one with the mice?»

«Not quite, this one charmed flowers.»

«Flowers», and he could hear the scepticism tinging Scorpius’ words; he could imagine him raising an eyebrow and cross his arms just like Pansy did, and laughed because she was spending too much time with his son and the last thing he needed was for him to start imitating her even more.

«They have an excellent sense of smell, you know. Music and fairies' scent attract them. Cause they know they have the nectar of wonders.»

He laughed, remembering how the fairy was more of a stone with a missing _d_ and how they had to tie her by her wrist not to let her jump from a neon sign and lose her wings. He laughed again, remembering the piper being nothing but a penniless musician that kept breaking the low E string of his guitar and Theo still struggled to understand how. And the flowers that followed were just twenty-years-old that smelled of alcohol and love for the world and stretched their arms and legs up in the air following a tune playing just for them. He remembered the _wonders_ trapped in white and blue circles that melted on his tongue and lighted up the world in pink, green, blue and yellow, surrounding him in clouds, blurring out the sounds and doubling bodies and words. He remembered how it was to see the reality behind the filter of euphoria and constant movement, of the music rocking the air and shaking the bones. Remembered Theo and his face stained with purple lipstick and paint that looked like stars in the dark and tasted like salt under his tongue. Remembered the sour scent of heat and strangers' hands touching his memories and filling his voids with that tiny bit of summer and carelessness that was missing from a year or so and was slowly coming back.

«They wondered in this foreign realm, discovering a wonder at every corner», Theo whispered, describing worlds made of water and glass, of realities warped by dreams and clouded by mist. And Draco saw again mirrors and patterned pillows covering the grass and filling the tents, heads thrown back in a slow and muffled vibrating of happiness and dry spices staining their fingers in red and white.

«There were the highest palaces, full of lights and sounds, in which they found aliens of every shape and colour. Some had wings, others rabbitlike ears and others even catlike tails», he went on lowering his voice, slowly, taking him back to the colours and sounds.

He closed his eyes, abandoning himself to the memories of the soft grass underneath his bare fingers, to the faint sighing of the leaves at night, when music still reverberated in the air and the lights went dim, turning the voices into a faint whispering and the heat into a chill wind that slid under their clothes and their lips glistened with promises. He let himself slid down another bit more, resting his head on the wooden floor and remembering Theo’s face looking like that of a giant reflected in the warped mirrors; his laughs echoing through the transparent glass walls of the aquariums, getting lost between sharks and octopuses. He remembered the darkness surrounding them at night, lightening them up in blue and red where were scars left by time, sliding slowly through unfamiliar breaths and hands and arms that felt like home. Remembered the brushing and yearning of skin and bones, the chasing of bodies on the ground, guarded by the stars and hidden from the clouds free from rain. He basked in the faint scents of the last evenings of a summer from back when the 3 was still the last digit on a cake dotted in wax, in the lingering feeling of the cold sweat tickling his skin and in the sour scent of the vibrating sounds. 

 

Theodore found him like this, closing the door to Scorpius’ room and almost tripping in his legs stretched out on the floor. He chuckled, blowing cold on his face and watching him scrunching his nose while he opened his eyes and smiled, letting Theo lift him up with no haste nor words. Draco felt the softness of the fabric under his body before the hardness of the skin against his ribs and legs. Gripped between his fingers the memories engraved in the foldings of the clothes and retraced the marks of the fractures now closed, still feeling the paint under his nails and seeing the red of the lights behind his closed eyelids. Felt the heat of summer melting into that of bodies and voices, feeling his bones shaking and his breath running and stopping to slow then down and roll lazily into another. He looked back to the past and saw again wings of fairies that never were and dancing flowers that never left the ground. Felt himself being brought back to the present, diving in dreams of a future that felt like winter and spring together, warm and cold, like the stars in the sky of Budapest and the broken tents big enough for two or maybe less. He breathed in the present on Theodore’s lips, letting his hands trace the path for an _us_ on his hips and shoulders, feeling the cold of his fingers against his chest and throat leaving behind traces of a question that didn’t need an answer because it was already in the silver that hung from his neck and between them, burning faintly on the skin.

 

 

**END.**


End file.
